Farmers stay overnight for a bag of subsidized urea
Source: Chronicle News Service

Kakching, July 16 2021: With urea not available adequately in the market and its price hiked unprecedentedly, farmers are facing serious inconveniences with many even staying overnight to procure a bag of subsidised urea made available through the respective district agriculture officers.

As done in other districts of the state, District Agriculture Officer Kakching/ Thoubal started availing subsidised urea to farmers with 200 bags of urea made available to farmers of Kakching during office hours at Manipur Supply and Marketing Co-operative Society godown located at Kakching Lamdong on Thursday.

As there is shortage of urea in the open markets and even though it is available it cost around Rs 800-900 per bag, farmers stayed overnight and thronged the godown from early morning to procure the subsidised urea made available through DAO with apprehension that they might not able to apply fertilizer in time, which is essential to see commensurate yield of the crops.

Farmers waited for a long time in long queue to avail a bag of urea and in the process flouted the Covid-19 SOP guidelines such as maintaining social distancing.

If farmers of Kakching residing near the godown have faced so many troubles in trying to procure the subsidised urea from the DAO, then the farmers living in peripheries of the district have no chance to avail it.

Police also encounter lots of troubles in trying to control the farmers and ensure social distancing norms.

Concerned over the situation, members of BJP Kakching Mandal under the supervision of MLA Mayanglambam Rameshwar stepped in to support the police in controlling the farmers and ensuring adherence to SOP guidelines.

In a bid to prevent crowding in front of the godown, 600 tokens at 200 tokens for a day till July 20 were distributed to the farmers.

Many farmers from interior areas of the district returned empty handed wasting both time and money and disheartened.

Meanwhile, Kakching Khunnai Chaokhat Hanba Lup president Jitesh Moirangthem, in a press release, pointed out that Covid positivity rate in the state is not decreasing.

Amidst such dreadful situation, farmers leave behind their fear of getting infected by Covid-19 in their bid to get fertilizers, he said and acknowledged the urgency of the farmers to apply fertilizers in time for better yield.

The government should also know the reason why farmers have become fearless of getting infected by the virus just to get a bag of urea.

Even though there is adequate supply of urea for farmers, the way it is being distributed to farmers during this pandemic time is inappropriate, he said.

Drawing the attention of the government to look into the matter, Jitesh urged the government authorities to make arrangement for home delivery of urea to the farmers or to hand it over to the local club or CSO for further distribution among the farmers.

Persisting with such inappropriate way of providing subsidised urea to farmers will make imposition of night curfew and micro containment zone to contain the spread of the virus meaningless, Jitesh cautioned.

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